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Radeon HD 4870 X2 vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 comes with a core clock frequency of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 7850, which features a clock speed of 860 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1024 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7850 130 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2 350 Watts
Difference: 220 Watts (169%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should theoretically perform much faster than the Radeon HD 7850 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2 230400 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7850 153600 MB/sec
Difference: 76800 (50%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 is a bit (approximately 9%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 7850. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2 60000 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7850 55040 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 4960 (9%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7850 will be a little bit (approximately 15%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4870 X2, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 7850 27520 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2 24000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 3520 (15%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

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Radeon HD 4870 X2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 7850

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model Radeon HD 4870 X2 Radeon HD 7850
Manufacturer AMD AMD
Year Aug 12, 2008 March 2012
Code Name R700 Pitcairn Pro
Memory 1024 MB (x2) 2048 MB
Core Speed 750 MHz (x2) 860 MHz
Memory Speed 3600 MHz (x2) 4800 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 350 watts 130 watts
Bandwidth 230400 MB/sec 153600 MB/sec
Texel Rate 60000 Mtexels/sec 55040 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 24000 Mpixels/sec 27520 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 800(160x5) (x2) 1024
Texture Mapping Units 40 (x2) 64
Render Output Units 16 (x2) 32
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit (x2) 256-bit
Fab Process 55 nm 28 nm
Transistors 956 million 2800 million
Bus PCIe 2.0 x16 (PCIe bridge) PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10.1 DirectX 11.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.0 OpenGL 4.2

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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Radeon HD 4870 X2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 7850

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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